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Sugar Cookie Bars {Holiday Baking with Kids}

12/10/12

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Sugar cookie bars are a delicious and easy to make holiday cookie. They are so easy to make, even young kids can help you, like mine did!

As I mentioned yesterday, it’s Cookie Week here on Cupcakes & Kale Chips. So for Mama Mondays, I am bringing you a really fun, easy, cookie recipe to make, with even the littlest little kitchen helpers. And these cookies would make a really sweet little gift from your little one. You can wrap them in homemade wrapping paper, causing grandparents everywhere to melt! Get the kids in the kitchen and make Sugar Cookie Bars!

(Brief disclaimer before I go on – Please excuse the disaster in the background of all of the pictures. If you have kept up with my Project Christmas Cookie 2012 status on Facebook, and know anything about my messy baking tendencies, then you understand. It is much cleaner now. 🙂

OK, I know. I love to cook, and I should love having The Bug in the kitchen with me, “helping”, so that he can learn and we can have a fun bonding experience. Yeah, umm, OK. Have you met my son?

Mr. Grabby Pants?! Having him around sharp objects, open flames, or motorized parts is a sure ticket to the Emergency Room. Notice how far I keep him from the KitchenAid? And when I am letting him add something to the bowl, I unplug it. He cannot be trusted.

Mr. Put it in His Mouth Even Though He is No Longer a Baby?! Raw eggs – always getting his fingers in them, then putting his fingers in his mouth. Raw meat – same deal as the eggs, because apparently it looks so appetizing when it is sitting on the counter waiting for me to season it. Raw butternut squash – just has to try it, and then nearly choke on it. But roasted, Parmesan crusted zucchini or creamed spinach at dinner? Forget it. This is the first time I ever let him crack an egg.

As evidenced by his technique – chuck the egg into the bowl…

…then pull out the shell. Hey, whatever works!

Mr. Gentle as a Rhinoceros?! See him violently shaking the container of sprinkles?

Yeah, imagine what would happen if I gave him a thin, delicate sugar cookie. I imagine a giant pile of crumbs. Which would be fine except he is also…

Mr. Impatient! “I want to do the sprinkles NNNOOOOWWWW!” Seriously, if he were decorating cookies and they were crumbling, then tantrum would be epic.

Mr. Try It NNNOOOWWWW!?! Remember what I said about the tendency to taste raw stuff. Yeah, goes double for sweets, of course.

But last year, I found a recipe for Sugar Cookie Bars from The Girl Who Ate Everything that was perfect! We could make the cookie dough together. I even managed to keep Mr. Grabby Pants in check, and keep most of the flour contained.

I’ll spread it in the pan (Mr. Impatient wanted to go watch Shrek) and bake it. Then once it was cool, I frosted, since Mr. Gentle as a Rhinoceros would destroy the cake. But then I gave him a multi-compartment container of sprinkles,

and let him go at it.

TA DA! Yeah, so it looks like kind of a mess, but whatever!

So proud!

And tasty, too!

And once you cut them into squares, the sugar cookie bars actually look kind of pretty!

We are going to give these to his teachers as part of their gifts, so that he can tell them he made them. We have had so much fun making these the past two years that I hope to make it an annual tradition. I can’t wait to see the progression as he gets older.

The frosting recipe sounds fabulous, but I totally cheated and used canned frosting, because something possessed me to buy one awhile ago, and I figured I should use it up so it wouldn’t sit in my pantry for the next year and a half.

Tell me about you traditions that you have with your kids every year for the holidays. Yes, we are doing the Elf on the Shelf thing, but I actually bought the Elf years ago, before it became so trendy.

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Comments

I love your photos! I know I’m coming late to the comments so now you can look back at the photos of your little boy and think about all the fun moments! I made these bars with my kids and we loved them. I helped them with the sprinkles so they were evenly spread but we still had lots of patches with extra sprinkles. Lots of fun. Thanks for the great recipe.